1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an air conditioner, and more particularly, to an indoor unit of an air conditioner such that a filter mounted on the front side of the indoor unit of the air conditioner and a filter frames for supporting the filter are mutually fixed and supported easily and thus assembling and disassembling are convenient and the appearance is elegant.
2. Description of the Related Art
An air conditioner is a device for maintaining optimized inside air according to purpose. For example, in the case where inside air becomes high temperature in summer, the air conditioner blows wind of low temperature to cool down the inside. On the contrary, in winter, the air conditioner blows warm wind of high temperature to heat the inside air. Also, recently, the air conditioner performs various functions of controlling humidity in the inside and purifying air.
The air conditioners are roughly divided into an integral type and a separation type. An integral type air conditioner has one unit as a whole and a separation type air conditioner separately has an indoor unit installed inside a space that needs air-conditioning and an outdoor unit installed in the outside. Particularly, recently, a separation type air conditioner is widely used considering noise and installation environment of an air conditioner.
FIG. 1 is an exploded perspective view of a separation type air conditioner of a related art and FIG. 2 is a view illustrating air is sucked into and discharged from an indoor unit of a separation type air conditioner of a related art.
Referring to the drawings, a main chassis 1 forms a frame of an indoor unit. The main chassis 1 has a front panel 3 formed on a front side thereof to form the outer appearance of the indoor unit. The main chassis 1 having the front panel 3 is mounted on a wall in the inside.
A space in which parts that will be described below are mounted is formed between the main chassis 1 and the front panel 3.
In the meantime, the outer appearance of the indoor unit formed by the main chassis 1 and the front panel 3 is protruded toward the front side as a whole as illustrated in FIG. 1.
A suction panel 7 having a front suction grill 5 is provided on the front of the front panel 3 to form a front appearance of the indoor unit. A hinge member (not shown) is provided at the upper end of the suction panel 7 to allow the suction panel 7 to rotate.
The front suction grill 5 is a path through which air sucked from a space that needs air-conditioning is sucked into the inside of the indoor unit. The front suction grill 5 is integrally formed with the suction panel 7. In the meantime, an upper suction grill 3′ is formed long left and right on the upper side of the front panel 3. The upper suction grill 3′ is integrally formed with the front panel 3 or separately formed.
A heat exchanger 9 is installed at the back of the front panel 3. The heat exchanger 9 allows air sucked through the front suction grill 5 and the upper suction grill 3′ to exchange heat while passing through the exchanger 9. A filter 9′ for purifying sucked air is installed on the front of the heat exchanger 9.
A cross-flow fan 10 is installed at the back of the heat exchanger. The cross-flow fan 10 sucks air from a space that needs air-conditioning and discharges air back to the space that needs air-conditioning. A fan motor 10′ for providing rotational power to the cross-flow fan 10 is installed on the right side of the cross-flow fan 10 and a member for guiding flow created by the cross-flow fan 10 is further integrally formed in the inside of the main chassis 1.
In the meantime, air that has heat-exchanged while passing through the heat exchanger 9 is discharged to a space that needs air-conditioning through the cross-flow fan 10. For that purpose, a discharge grill 11 is installed at the lower end of the main chassis 1 and the front panel 3.
In the meantime, a discharge port 13 for guiding air that has passed through the cross-flow fan 10 to a space that needs air-conditioning is formed in the inside of a discharge grill 11.
A vane 15 for vertically controlling the direction of discharged air and a louver for horizontally controlling the direction of discharged air are installed in the inside of the discharge port 13. The louver 16 is provided in plurals and the louvers 16 are connected to each other by a link 17 to operate simultaneously.
Also, a display part 19 for displaying an operation state of an air conditioner is provided at an about center on the lower portion of the front panel 3.
In the meantime, a filter-mount part 20 is formed on left and right of the front frame 3, respectively. The filter-mount part 20 has a pair of high performance filters 22. The high performance filter 22 is supported by a filter frame 24. That is, the quadrangular filter frame 24 having the high performance filter 22 is detachably mounted on the filter-mount part 20. The high performance filter 22 has a singe function or various functions.
A filter knob 26 for allowing the filter frame 24 to be easily detached may be further provided on the lower end of the filter frame 24. Though not shown, a fixing protuberance and a fixing groove that are formed to correspond to each other are provided to the filter frame 24 and the filter-mount part 20, so that the filter frame 24 is coupled to the filter-mount part 20.
Description will be made for the air conditioner having the above-described construction and operating in a cooling mode.
When the air conditioner operates, air for air-conditioning is sucked into the inside of an indoor unit by the cross-flow fan 10. That is, air is sucked into the inside of the indoor unit through the front suction grill 5 and the upper suction grill 3′ to pass through the heat exchanger 9.
The air that has passed through the heat exchanger 9 exchanges heat with working fluid flowing in the inside of the heat exchanger 9.
The air that has exchanged heat with the heat exchanger 9 becomes relatively low temperature and is sucked into the cross-flow fan 10. The air sucked into the cross-flow fan 10 is discharged to the lower direction and guided to the side of the discharge port 13.
The air guided to the inside of the discharge port 13 changes a discharging direction thereof using the vane 15 and the louver 16 installed inside the discharge port 13 and is discharged to a space that needs air-conditioning through the discharge grill 13. At this point, since the vane 15 and the louver 16 allow the discharged air to be distributed vertically and horizontally, the air is uniformly discharged to the space that needs air-conditioning.
To fix the heat exchanger 9, a fixing bracket 8 is provided to the left of the main chassis 1 and a fixing end 8′ that corresponds to a screw-coupling end 9a of the heat exchanger 9 is provided to the right of the main chassis 1. A screw-coupling hole 8″ should be punched in the inside of the fixing end 8′.
A receiving groove 8a for receiving a left end of the heat exchanger 9 is formed on the front side and the upper side of the fixing bracket 8. Hookers 8b for hooking and fixing a left hairpin 9c of the heat exchanger 9 are protruded in the inside of the receiving groove 8a. 
A screw through hole 9b that corresponds to the screw-coupling hole 8″ is punched in the inside of the screw-coupling end 9a of the heat exchanger 9.
The heat exchanger 9 is fixed by fixing the fixing bracket 8 in the left of the main chassis 1 using a screw S. At this point, the receiving groove 8a of the fixing bracket 8 is open toward the right side.
When the hairpin 9c of the heat exchanger 9 is inserted into the receiving groove 8a of the fixing bracket 8, the hairpin 9c is hooked at and fixed in the hooker 8b of the inside of the receiving groove 8a. At this point, the left end of the heat exchanger 9 is fixed first.
After that, the right side of the heat exchanger 9, more specifically, the screw-coupling end 9a is closely attached to the fixing end 8′ of the main chassis 1 and the screen through hole 9b is coupled to the screw-coupling hole 8″ using a screw S, so that the heat exchanger 9 is fixed to the main chassis 1.
To replace the high performance filter 22, the filter frame 24 is raised and pulled to the lower side by taking the filter knob 26 formed thereon to separate the filter frame 24 from the filter-mount part 20. After that, the filter frame 24 having a new high performance filter 22 is mounted. The filter frame 24 is mounted in the reverse order.
However, the related art has the following problems.
In the related art indoor unit of the air conditioner, the high performance filter 22 is fixed in the filter frame 24. Accordingly, the high performance filter 22 is installed by fitting the filter frame 24 into the filter-mount part 20 of the front frame 3. Since the filter frame 24 for supporting the high performance filter 22 should be separately provided in the related art, the number of parts increase and thus assembling processes and manufacturing costs increase.
Also, since the suction panel 7 constituting the front appearance of the indoor unit is formed in a straight-line in the related art air conditioner, the appearance of the indoor unit is not elegant.